THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. -- Tiger Woods said long ago he would give up golf when he felt he could
play his best and still not win. That includes his lifetime invitation to the Masters.

"Let me put it to you this way," Woods said last week at his World Challenge. "I'm not going
to beat Arnold's record. I'm not playing that long, that's for sure."

Palmer set a record in 2004 by playing in his 50th consecutive Masters. Woods won his first
green jacket when he was 21, and with reasonable health (a big assumption considering his
injuries), he would seem to be in the best position to break that record. Even with his injuries,
the Masters is the one major Woods has never missed.

He just doesn't appear the least bit interested in that kind of a record.

"For me, I always want to win," he said. "So if I can't win, why tee it up? That's just my
own personal belief. And I know what it takes to prepare to win and what it takes to go out there
and get the job done, and there's going to become a point in time where I just can't do it anymore.
We all as athletes face that moment. I'm a ways from that moment in my sport, but when that day
happens, I'll make a decision and that's it."

But for Woods or any golfer, it's tough to know when that day happens.

Palmer never won another PGA Tour event after the Bob Hope Classic in 1973, though he
remained competitive for many years. Several players eligible for the Champions Tour are hesitant
about moving on.

When is it time?

"In golf, you can still win golf tournaments in your 50s, and guys have done it," Woods said.
"Probably the more difficult thing is that you can still finish top 10, top five, but you're
probably just not quite as efficient as you need to be to win golf tournaments. But you can still
be there."

Might he change his mind about the Masters as he gets older? It doesn't sound like it.

"Mellowing on that? No. I'll be on that first tee starting out the event, I'm sure," he said
with a smile and a dose of sarcasm. "So I mean, you hit a good drive and you can't get to where you
can see the flag? I don't know why it's even fun."

IN THE BAG: Jack Nicklaus won't have a bouquet of head covers in his bag when he
plays the PNC Father-Son Challenge this weekend, though the 14 clubs in his bag have changed from
his prime.

Nicklaus said when he played on the PGA Tour he carried a driver and a 3-wood, a 1-iron
through a 9-iron, pitching wedge, sand wedge and putter.

"Now I've got a driver, a 3-wood, a 4-wood and a 5-wood," he said last week in a conference
call. "I'm not a big hybrid guy, although I'm playing with one right now and I took out the 2-iron.
That's pretty much where I am. I'm usually a 3-iron through 9-iron, pitching wedge and sand wedge.
I don't know if that's 14 or 15 (clubs), but it'll be 14 when I tee it up."

No other player hit more memorable shots with a 1-iron than Nicklaus, a club that featured in
three of his majors - the 1972 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, the 1975 Masters and the 1967 U.S. Open
at Baltusrol.

But there were times when he benched the 1-iron.

"I used to even go to Augusta when I carried a 1-iron a lot, and sometimes I'd put in maybe a
4- or 5-wood, simply because you needed some elevation to stop it on the greens and some of the
lies you played," Nicklaus said.

TWEETING TIGER: Jason Dufner jokingly tweeted to Tiger Woods that the schedule of
the World Challenge be changed so Dufner could watch Auburn in the SEC title game last week. Woods
replied on Twitter, "Petition denied."

It was a significant only because it was Woods' first tweet in more than a month. It was his
35th tweet in the span of a year, most of them commercially related. And that Dufner tweet was the
first of - get this - FIVE tweets in two days.

"I'm hot, aren't I?" Woods said.

Woods said that girlfriend Lindsey Vonn is trying to persuade him to tweet more. Progress
remains slow.

"I grew up in a different era, and it's a little bit different for me," Woods said, who is 9
years older than the downhill ski champion. "I'm still a little bit old-school. I'm kind of getting
it, but still not grasping the whole concept yet. But I'll get there eventually."